Here’s What’s Wrong With The ‘Orange is the New Black’ Prison Riot

If you’ve had the chance to watch Season 5 of the hit Jenji Kohan-created Netflix original series Orange is the New Black, then you already know that the events of the entire season transpire over the course of 3 days. Throughout the season, the female prisoners of Litchfield Penitentiary band together to stage a riot as a way of getting justice for Poussey (Samira Wiley), as well as a list of their demands met. While it’s a fictional television show, there were a bunch of real-life inaccuracies that have to be talked about.

First of all, it doesn’t seem feasible that nobody would get stabbed considering the arsenal of knives available in the kitchen. Mind you, these women are in prison (some of them for murder) and the action of stabbing someone for a bag of hot Cheetos or even just for looking at them funny doesn’t seem unreasonable. While yes, there was a finger shot off, it doesn’t make sense that nobody else was harmed.

The second thing we have to talk about is the Pharmacy. With a plethora of drug users and abusers housed at the prison, how is it that nobody was able to get past little Lorna (Yael Stone) and ransack the bottles, even overdose? Instead, Lorna got to play pharmacist and turn away fiending inmates as if it were your everyday normal CVS.

There would also have to be further medical ramifications to that one guard not being allowed to inject his insulin or Suzanne (aka “Crazy Eyes”), who is portrayed by actress Uzo Aduba, given too much lithium to the point of comatose and then an EpiPen to wake her up. It just doesn’t add up that both of them would appear fine after such intense physical trauma.

Lastly, how is there a hole in the fence and inmates sleeping in the grass with nobody from the outside guarding the perimeter? How did the inmates gain access to tools that are strong enough to cut a chain link fence? Also, why didn’t more people try to escape even sooner than Chang and Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning)? It’s more likely that if there was such an easy window to escape that there would be a mass exodus within the first day or two.

All in all, we’d have to say that the season was pretty dark compared to the previous four. What started off as a dramedy, Orange is the New Black has now become a straight up drama. If that’s the case and the writers are truly eliminating most of the comedy aspect, why not get the darkest of details correct? On entertainment value alone, the season was excellent and if you haven’t seen it yet, we suggest you watch and look out for these inaccuracies along the way.

Michael is a music and television junkie keen on most things that are not a complete and total bore. You can follow him on Twitter — @Tweetskoor